"We welcome to our desk The San Francisco Sentinel. This is one of the brightest papers published in the West. We are glad, always, to receive such exchanges. There is plenty of room for good papers. We wish The Sentinel a long and prosperous voyage, for we recognize in it a strong and fearless defender of the race. May The Sentinel be a power on the Coast, and always the sentry of the race rights."—The Advocate, Leavenworth, Kan.
"This week our table holds The San Francisco Sentinel, Vol. I, No. 1, with the gifted R. C. O. Benjamin, formerly at the head of The Negro American of Birmingham, as editor.
The editor of Fair Play, and many others of this city, are well acquainted with Mr. Benjamin and rejoice to know that he again drives the quill. Long live The Sentinel to help in the great work of obtaining equal rights and fair play in the race of life for every American citizen, without regard to race or color."—Fair Play, Meridian, Miss.
As a newspaper man. Mr. Benjamin has been a marked success. He is fearless in his editorial expression; and the fact that he is a negro does not lead him to withhold his opinions upon the live issues of the day, but to give them in a courageous manner. His motto is: "My race first, and my best friends next." Any one reading his paper will find that his race has an able champion in him, and one who will never fail them. His strictures on the murders and outrages of his race in the South, and his demand for an equal chance in the race of life for his people, show true manliness.
Mr. Benjamin is widely known to the newspaper fraternity by the nom de plume of "Cicero," a cognomen he adopted while corresponding editor of The Nashville (Tenn.) Free Lance. He was for some time the local editor of The Daily Sun, a prominent white paper, published at Los Angeles, Cal. and is the first colored man to hold such a position on a white journal.
